Hello Again,
This is from: _jpreisig at aol.com_ (mailto:jpreisig at aol.com) .
Dr. Raabe is probably right in that early missions to Mars will be
chemically propelled.
Then a less uptight country like China will beat us to Mars (a ma
nned mission) using a nuclear
propelled spacecraft, in tandem with a chemically propelled liftoff from
Earth. One could assemble the
reactor spaceship from parts sent to the international space station.
Then launch that bad boy
spaceship.
Once the shuttle program ends, NASA scientists and engineers will
tire of twiddling their thumbs, and
will start to get going on a nuclear propelled spacecraft, as suggested by
the professor from
IIT.
Glory be, I had forgotten about fast neutron reactors. Fast
neutrons and enriched Uranium or
Plutonium could lead to a one way Mars travel time of less than 2
months???!!!! Whoa.
Star trek, here we come.
I am not too familiar with what happened with the fire (and
plutonium) at Rocky Flats.
I think remediation there went on for quite some time. Hope the fire
doesn't affect Los Alamos.
Did terrorists set these fires???
Goodness, Americium on US car air filters??? (Americium in my Maypo
or Grape Nuts
breakfast cereal). My heavens, isn't Americium considerably heavier than
air? Does it actually
get to the USA from Japan or is it here from bomb testing way back when????
NaI detectors for gamma spectrometry --- hmmmm, only if there is no
Ge detector around????
Nice internal dosimetry job at Brookhaven for someone right now. See
their web site.
Be good. Regards, Joseph R. (Joe) Preisig, PhD